Murder Ink: 3 murders this week, 285 murders this year

Edward Ericson Jr.

This week's low murder count is luck. There were 23 non-fatal shootings, including four double-shootings. Police arrested four people with handguns, and charged four people, including two women, with shootings. Keith Davis Jr. was convicted of murdering Kevin Jones.

Tuesday, Oct. 17

7:37 p.m. Demetrius Mitchell, a 21-year-old African-American man, was on the 1600 block of Aisquith Street on Oct. 10 when someone shot him in the neck. Police heard the shots but did not see any witnesses. Mitchell was hospitalized and lived seven more days before succumbing to his injury on Oct. 17.

7:53 p.m. A 44-year-old man, who police have not yet identified publicly, was on the 2400 block of Barclay Street when someone shot him and a 29-year-old man. The 44-year-old died at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Saturday, July 22

1:10 a.m. On July 22, Edralin Montebon, a 34-year-old Asian-American man, was on his way home from a night out on the unit block of E. Cross Street when someone assaulted him. He collapsed to the pavement and was later discovered to have had a brain aneurysm. Police believe he knew the people who hit him, but have not yet identified them despite video of the altercation. Montebon died on July 25, but police did not classify his death as a homicide until this week, and so he is added to the list.

Update:

A jury convicted Keith Davis Jr. of the murdering Kevin Jones, a 22-year-old African-American man who was shot just before 5 a.m. as he was heading to work as a security guard on June 7, 2015. Later that day, police shot Davis, after he hid in a garage allegedly after trying to rob a hack cabbie. The case became a cause célèbre for local activists; Davis claimed he had been minding his own business, unarmed and listening to headphones, when police rushed him. The gun they recovered in the garage had Davis' palm print on it though, and a ballistics expert claimed it was the gun used to kill Jones. Before he was charged with Jones' murder, a Baltimore jury acquitted Davis of robbery, but convicted him of illegally having the gun (prior criminal convictions bar him from possessing a firearm). He is serving a five year sentence for that, and now faces much more time for the murder.